


Two?

by emimix3



Series: Bitty and Jack's Most Excellent Coming Out [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, Friendship, Language Barrier, Misunderstandings, Multi, Sweet, supportive friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 20:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17453714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emimix3/pseuds/emimix3
Summary: Jack was tired of talking about his non-existent girlfriend, when he had a great boyfriend he dreamt of being able to gush about.No, today he'll come out, even if it's only to one (1) person.Sadly the English language makes it complicated for everyone involved,tabarnouche.





	Two?

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a tumblr post I made eons ago
> 
> Set during Y3, before Jack came out to any of the Falcs

This morning was an optional skate for the Falconers -and, as they had won a game the night before, no need to say not many players were there.

Bitty had come to the game, and spent the night, and he had almost managed to talk Jack into skipping practice to stay in bed with him (wink wink). Almost, because Jack realised quickly that Bitty was himself trying to skip his morning class.

Well, perhaps Jack had forgotten his jog to instead lounge in bed with his boyfriend a little, but he kicked Bitty’s butt to the eight AM train and he went to the optional skate, with a few fresh pastries in his arms.

The rink was still quite empty by the time he arrived, and he only crossed paths with a few people from the staff -including Sarah, his favourite trainer, whom he saw in the hallway near the nook. She sighed heavenly when she saw him, or more like, when she smelled the lemon bars he was carrying.

 

“Jack, if you don’t marry your girl, I will,” she moaned, between two bites.

“Haha, sorry, I don’t plan to let my girlfriend go,” he replied with a laugh.

 

His smile was strained, but she didn’t seem to notice. She took another bar and winked at him, and left. As soon as she was away, Jack’s face dropped.

 

“Hey Zimmboni! Why so sad?”

 

Jack blinked a few times and turned his head to see Tater, standing a few metres away in the nook’s doorway, in his workout clothes.

 

“Hi Tater. It’s nothing.”

“Good, then you come and you bring the food before Snowy arrive and eat all,” Tater beamed, going back inside.

 

Not impressed, Jack followed him in the nook to see that they were the only two people in there; but, at least, while waiting for company, Tater had been busy and he had prepared a thermos of tea and a few mugs, set on the table in front of the couch. It smelled really good, unlike the tea packs that were laying around and that everyone was using.

 

“Brought my own tea. Homemade. Russian Earl Grey, the good shit. Goes well with the pastries you always bring after home games; at least I think, I know nothing about tea and pastries.”

“Great, Tater,” Jack said with a genuine smile before sitting next to him on the couch.

“Too bad others not here, because we gossip about them then. Let’s trash Marty’s new haircut.”

 

Jack took the mug of tea that he was offered, and blew on it a little bit before taking a sip. Indeed, that was some good shit.

 

“It would be mean of us to mock his hair,” Jack smiled. “But it’s meaner of him to force us to see it.”

 

Tater had a good laugh, spilling a little bit of the mug he had in hand.

 

“I like it! You are so bad, Zimmboni!”

“The only bad person here is the hairdresser who made him pay for that.”

“Haha! Yes, it’s so bad. Who do she think we are, football players?”

“It’s North America, Tater. We call it ‘soccer’ here.”

“Animals.”

“Just use the correct name for things, haha.”

 

Except for your boyfriend.

Tater didn’t notice that Jack’s mood suddenly turned sour. He was busy trying to guess which lemon bar displayed in front of him was the biggest to take it, and when he found the rare gem he bit in it with a sinful groan.

Snowy chose this time to enter the room, and he shot him a judging glare before going straight to the trainers’ room.

 

“It’s so good. Your girlfriend -she is amazing. You keep her, Zimmboni.”

“Yeah. They bake a lot.”

 

In the grand scheme of things, it was nothing to say that. He didn’t even use “he”, or the word “boyfriend”. But Jack, eyeing Tater, saw it as a challenge. A first step.

Tater didn’t seem to react, at first, but under Jack’s glare, he frowned.

And after a few seconds, he said-

 

“Oh.”

 

At this moment, Jack knew. He fucked up.

He hated Jack from five seconds ago like he never hated anyone before. Why did he do that. Why couldn’t he suck it up. Why-

 

“I get it, Zimmboni. You’re like me.”

 

And then, in the greatest calm, Tater resumed his eating, oblivious of the fact he had just dropped the biggest bomb on the corner of Jack’s face.

 

“You… You too?”

“Yeah! I know I don’t looks like this -but I’m very happy. Very in love.”

 

Jack was flabbergasted. Did Tater just… Did Tater _just_?

He quickly snapped out of it, though. He could hear Thirdy and Liver in the hallway. Snowy was right next door.

 

“Hey, Tater, do you want to come over for lunch? So we can talk?”

“Yeah, sure,” Tater said before gulfing down another bar (was it his third? It was his third.) “Will there be dessert? Made by your (he winked) _girlfriend_?’

 

And when Jack replied by the positive, he winked too.

 

**Sweat-pea** **💕👟** **, Bud(gie)** **💞🐥**

>> I told someone. About us.

> !!!!!!!!!!!  
>😮😮🤯👏  
> Really?! Who

>> Another player. And I don’t know how much was me telling him and how much was him guessing.

> And you don’t give me names because…?

>> Because he told me he has a boyfriend too.

> 😮😃🤩🤯!!!!!!!!!!  
> !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! INCREDIBLE  
> SO GREAT!!!!!!!!!

>> We’re meeting at home for lunch so I’m going to tell him more about you specifically.  
>> It’s… I’m excited. I never go to do so.

> Haha! Like I gush about you on Twitter?

>> Haha maybe. I’ll ask him if I can tell you about him.

> That’s great love  
> Go meet Queer Friends

 

 

After morning practice, Tater stopped home to get a change of clothes -giving Jack enough time to himself change and begin to throw together something in the pan for lunch. It was -how original- chicken breast, but with some spices just to say he isn’t always eating the same thing. (He always used the same mix of spices so honestly, it was just to please Bitty and his mom.)

Tater arrived way before the chicken had cooked, and he joined Jack in the kitchen, looking at him cook as he sat on the table with a cookie from the always-full jar in his mouth.

 

“Don’t eat sweets before lunch, you won’t eat anything after. Also, please seat like a human being, on a chair.”

“You think you are my mama now, Zimmboni?”

“Someone has to be,” he replied with a laugh.

 

Tater looked at him work for a while -Jack had never been one to multitask, even if it was just talking while doing something. Thing is -there were so many things he wanted to say, that he wouldn’t know where to begin. It, literally, was the first time he could gush about Bitty. This friends in Samwell obviously knew all about him, and the only other people on this earth knowing about them were his parents. And there were some topics that you don’t want to talk about with your parents.

His teammate quickly gulped down his cookie, and finally, he took pity on Jack’s inability to start a conversation and said:

 

“So, Zimmie… I wouldn’t took you for the type. But yes, no question why you wouldn’t talk about your girlfriend-“

 

That was a bit stereotyping, Tater. You could gain much from a conversation or two with Shitty.

 

“- of course, it’s because you had two girlfriends.”

 

Jack smiled. And dropped in the pan the spatula he as stirring the meat with. And blinked. Three times.

Slowly, he turned around.

 

“I… What?”

“Yeah? Two girlfriends?”

“Tater, I do not have two girlfriends?”

 

Jack was looking at Tater, horrified. His friend only frowned, asking:

 

“ _Three_ girlfriends?”

 

Gobsmacked, Jack was gobsmacked.

 

“Tater? What the hell?”

“ _Four?”_ Tater asked, stunned, and counting on his fingers.

“Tater. Tater no. One. I have _one boyfriend_ and he’s time-consuming enough.”

 

Tater just made a little ‘oh’, and Jack was looking at him, full of regrets.

 

“But why you say ‘they’ if only one boy? Why not ‘he’?”

“Because you can use ‘they’ as a singular?! If you don’t know the pronouns of someone, want to hide their gender, or if the person use ‘they’?” Jack studiously recited, even if still blinking of bewilderment.

“What? It’s a thing you do in English? I didn’t know!”

“Yeah, _crisse_ , neither did I before college.”

 

Jack joined Tater at the table, six feet under. Only the sound of the cooking chicken could be heard for a while.

 

“I didn’t know you were gay,” Tater finally said to break the silence. “I asked if you are het and you say ‘yes’, so.”

“I’m bi actually, and never, once in my life, have I ever told anyone that I were straight.”

“Yes you did! It was like, beginning when we were friends.”

 

It was a truthful heart-to-heart. So, Jack felt like he had to tell Tater his second best-kept secret.

 

“Tater… Sometimes, your accent is so strong that instead of asking you to repeat a third time when I don’t get what you said, I just randomly reply ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”

“You are a little bitch, Zimmboni.”

“Sorry.”

 

The meal had finally cooked, and Jack took the time that he was serving the plates and that they begin to eat to try to gather his thoughts. He was totally running off-script, here. Not that he had much of a script before, but at least he had a vague idea of where the conversation was supposed to go.

 

“So, you got a boyfriend, uh?” Tater asked, munching his vegetable stir way too hard as always.

“Yes,” Jack replied, playing with his chicken.

“Do I know him?”

“I… I don’t know. My old team came a few times to games, but I don’t know if you ever talked with him.”

“Oh! He’s a hockey player? Of course he is. You’re Zimmboni.”

 

Tater was beaming and really, actually interested. And he was teasing him.

Jack softly smiled.

 

”I could totally get someone who don’t like hockey if I wanted to.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“Hey!”

 

The awkwardness had vanished a little bit. Good grief. They were back to good ol’ chirping, as it should be.

 

“And so… You? I guess it means you don’t have a boyfriend?”

“No, I… I have two girlfriends.”

“Oh.”

“Oh.”

“So you’re… Polyamorous? That’s the word, right? I always mix it up with polysexual.”

“Yes, that is the word!” Tater smiled.

“Do _I_ know them?”

 

His teammate laughed a little, a bit sour.

 

“I wish, Zimmie. But no. They’re not coming to any after-games.”

 

Yes, Jack understood the feeling. Even if Bitty did come to games, most of the time he was drowned somewhere in the stands and no one but them knew he was even there. At least, when other people from Samwell also came, he had an excuse to bring them all to the locker room and get them good seats.

But yeah. Far from the other WAGs.

 

“Tell me more about them,” Jack asked to change the subject.

“I have one girlfriend, Jenna, she has a fiancé -he’s a nice guy, good bro. Jenna, her, she’s very pretty, and likes cinema a lot, and musicals. Always brings me to see the best plays and movies. They wait a baby together, I am godfather. But I’m sad because she’s very pregnant now, so I see her less…”

“Oh. That’s tough…”

“No, no. It’s normal. We still love us. And other girlfriend, Ina -she’s artist. Always making things; jewels, plushes, paints. She was one who teach me polyamory. She has no other love right now, she was dump not long ago, so I see her more because she’s sad. Now you, you tell me about baker-hockey-lover boy…”

 

 

 

**Sweat-pea** **💕👟** **, Bud(gie)** **💞🐥**

>> Can I call you ?

> Is it urgent? There’s tadpoles in the reading room, and can go to the basement if you need to call

>> No text is fine.

> Good I didn’t want to move from my bed.  
> So, how did it go?  
> I felt so stressed for nting 😰 considering that youre both in the same boat LOL

>> Well  
>> Uh

> ???!!!??!??

>> It was a big misunderstanding ?

> WHat???????? What does that mean????????  
> How

>> Well turns out he doesn’t have a boyfriend at all.

> How, boy

>> Well I talked about you this morning, using ‘they’ pronouns…  
>> So tater took a few seconds and said ‘yeah, wink wink, we the same zimmboni’

> So it’s Tater? Alexei Mashkov?  
> Didn’t tickle my admirable gaydar. 

>> Yeah it’s him. So-  
>> Your gaydar is the most awful thing on this earth, Eric ‘I-fell-for-a-straight-boy’ Bittle

> Did you really stop in your explanation to chirp me Mister 🐥🐥

>> \- so, I’m really happy, he’s really happy, so I asked him to come over, he comes over.  
>> And well. Turns out he doesn’t actually have a boyfriend.  
>> And that he isn’t queer.

> ? Please tell me it wasn’t an ambush or smtg

>> No, no. He… actually has two girlfriends?

> So how that, ‘we the same?’  
> oh! Yes! They pronouns. Ok  
> oh  
> well my gaydar aint that bad

>> It is. Truly.

> it is not

>> MIKA

> it is  
> so wow. Two girlfriends  
> he has a schedule just like yours how does he manage

>> I haven’t asked  
>> You can ask next time you’re here, he invited us to dinner. The five of us

> ok so question

>> One of the girls is allergic to nuts and the other is pregnant but I don’t know what pregnant people can and can’t eat

> what should I bake  
> lol  
> You know me too well 💕

**Author's Note:**

> [Post in question](http://insertatitlehere.tumblr.com/post/171699790543/)


End file.
